{"id":3744,"date":"2020-02-16T23:01:00","date_gmt":"2020-02-17T04:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/?p=3744"},"modified":"2020-02-16T23:01:00","modified_gmt":"2020-02-17T04:01:00","slug":"the-ongoing-torment-of-political-prisoner-arthur-topham","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/?p=3744","title":{"rendered":"The Ongoing Torment of Political Prisoner Arthur Topham"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

B.C. man\nconvicted of online hate crime back in court<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arthur Topham allegedly breached\nprobation order<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Betsy Trumpener<\/a> \u00b7 CBC News \u00b7 Posted: Feb 11, 2020\n6:07 PM PT | Last Updated: an hour ago<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A jury in\nQuesnel convicted Topham of communicating statements on his website in 2011 and\n2012 that willfully promoted hatred against Jewish people. (Betsy\nTrumpener\/CBC)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A \nB.C. man convicted of an anti-Semitic hate crime is back in court. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arthur\nTopham was convicted in 2015 of one count of  communicating online\nstatements that wilfully promoted hatred against Jewish people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2017,\n a B.C. Supreme Court judge sentenced him to a six-month conditional\nsentence, two years probation, a curfew and a ban on posting online.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This\nweek, the B.C. Prosecution Service said Topham is back before the\ncourts for allegedly breaching the terms of his probation order. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Online posts demonized Jews<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Topham, a retired teacher, was charged with hate crimes while producing an online newspaper from his rural home near Quesnel. …<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Topham’s\nlawyer argued the posts were political satire, did not incite\nviolence and included materials that could easily be ordered on Amazon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First B.C. hate crime trial in a decade<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Topham, who was living along a remote road 700 kilometres north of Vancouver attracted high profile supporters.Self proclaimed “white nationalist”  Paul Fromm <\/a> helped fund Topham’s defence and travelled to Quesnel for the trial. Monika Schaefer<\/a>, who served jail time in Germany for Holocaust denial, also attended court. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As well,\nTopham had the support from the Ontario Civil Liberties Association, which\nchampions free speech.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When\nTopham’s case went to trial, it was the first hate crime prosecution\nin B.C. in almost a decade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2008,\nKeith Francis William [Bill] Noble of Fort St. John was sentenced to jail time\nfor promoting hatred against identifiable groups on the internet. \n\nTopham is scheduled to return to court on the\nprobation breach allegation on Feb, 19, with a trial scheduled for March\n12\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

B.C. man convicted of online hate crime back in court Arthur Topham allegedly breached probation order Betsy Trumpener \u00b7 CBC News \u00b7 Posted: Feb 11, 2020 6:07 PM PT | Last Updated: an hour ago A jury in Quesnel convicted … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3744"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3744"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3744\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3751,"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3744\/revisions\/3751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}